Abandoned ideals of brotherhood? A masculinity perspective on the relationship between 19th century Norwegian Missionaries and Zulu Pastors

Abstract:

The Lutheran Norwegian Missionary Society (NMS) sent in 1844 its first missionaries to
the Zulus. The NMS’ goal was to establish native churches which become
self-supporting, self-governing and self-propagating. This “three-self” formula was to be
accomplished by winning individual souls to Christianity, organising them into churches
and providing them with trained, indigenous ministry. Baleni kaNdlela Mthimkhulu was
the first Zulu pastor to be ordained in NMS in 1893. The paper asks why it took so long
for NMS missionaries to fulfil their original objective of recruiting, educating and
ordaining indigenous church personnel. Furthermore, why were the Zulu pastors after
ordination still treated as the missionaries’ subordinates? The questions are discussed
from a masculinity perspective. The paper argues that internal church relations between
these groups of men were influenced by external political and societal power relations
where white masculinity had hegemony. The Norwegian missionaries’ ambivalent
understanding of the Zulu man reflected common colonial discourses, where Zulu men
on one hand were portrayed as physical strong and well-gifted men with rich potential,
on the other hand as unstable, emotional and childish men.

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